For years, I've been connecting with interesting people and documenting insights that might help my clients and myself. What was once private is now (mostly) public.

People often ask: "How do you know all these people?" and "How do you connect these (re: random) ideas?" The answer is simple: consistent relationship cultivation and thoughtful note taking. My north star is trusting my instincts, my maps are the constellations in these reflections.

This approach to multidisciplinary networking has helped dozens of clients, colleagues, and friends strengthen their networks and unlock new opportunities. Feel free to steal these ideas directly - that's what they're for! I can't promise you'll learn FROM me, but I guarantee you can learn something WITH me. Let's go. Count it off: 1-2-3-4!

Do you know Chris Vasseur? Former high school football coach and consultant, now in the midst of a full reinvention - diving deep into investing and trading while running multiple businesses. He's the kind of person who reads 80 books in 15 months when he decides to master something, and who has the self-awareness to stop doing something the moment he realizes it's making him a person he doesn't enjoy being.

If not, allow me to introduce you. Chris spent half his life building expertise in football coaching and consulting, winning at the highest levels, and then life forced him in a different direction. Rather than resist, he's leaning all the way in - learning investing from first principles, building a trading methodology that matches his personality, and documenting the whole thing publicly.

I wanted to connect with him because he embodies something I value deeply: the willingness to start at zero in a completely new domain, and the self-awareness to know what you're good at, what you're not, and most importantly, who you want to become in the process.

Our conversation is LIVE now on the Just Press Record YouTube channel and this Cultish Creative Playlist. Listen and you'll hear a coach learning to trade, a consultant becoming a student, and someone asking hard questions about what success actually looks like when the scoreboard keeps changing.

In the meantime, I wanted to pull THREE KEY LESSONS from my time with Chris to share with you (and drop into my Personal Archive).

Read on and you'll find a quote with a lesson and a reflection you can Take to work with you, Bring home with you, and Leave behind with your legacy.

Key Concept: The best strategy isn't the one that works on paper - it's the one that works with how you're actually wired. Chris realized his personality made him naturally inclined toward trend-following and breakout investing, not value hunting. Rather than fight that wiring, he doubled down on understanding the rules and guardrails of the approach that matched his psychology. This isn't about picking the "smartest" strategy; it's about picking the one where your natural instincts and the rules of the game are aligned.

Personal Archive Note-To-Self: There's an understated reality to how you practice what you like in life, and then you get good at what you practice, even if you don't love it. It's easier to piece it together in hindsight - how one job or interest ties to another. But in real time, I think we can all learn to be even a tiny bit more self-aware of carrying stuff forward.

It's the wax on, wax off philosophy. Some of it probably comes with age. It’s like how Mr. Miyagi knew it enough to teach it in The Karate Kid, but young Daniel doesn't know it until he sees it applied in a fight, when his own body surprises his brain. My own experiences in bands, in studios, then behind a teller counter or working loans - I see all the through lines now, but like Daniel, I had to have life in front of my nose shock my wetware into reality.

I haven’t quite achieved Miyagi status, but there's nothing new I undertake now that I don't start to pull on all that practice, rumbling through the toolbox of lessons, and considering what might be applicable.

Vass is doing the same thing. He's crossing industries from coaching to trading, but he's all in on himself and those prior experiences first. It's fascinating to see him explore the perspectives that come from having done something else at a high level. They aren’t lessons to be moved on from, so much as concepts to be reapplied in new domains.

Work question for you: What strategy, system, or approach in your domain are you forcing yourself into because it should work, rather than aligning with how you're actually wired?

Key Concept: Self-awareness isn't just about knowing your strengths - it's about recognizing when you're becoming someone you don't want to be. Chris discovered that futures trading brought out versions of himself (greed, desperation, addiction-like behavior) that his equity trading never triggered. The tool was the same (pressing buttons on a website), the timeframe was different, and suddenly his entire psychology shifted. His response was decisive: the moment he realized it was making him a person he didn't enjoy, he stopped. That clarity is rare and powerful.

Personal Archive Note-To-Self: It’s ok to say no. It’s ok to not like things. It’s actually important to both say no AND not like things. it doesn’t make you a jerk! My therapist (and my wife, and my friends) all call them boundaries. And, surprise, surprise - not all of us are quite so gifted with these things so we have to learn them.

The boundaries aren’t strictly barriers, either. They represent lines in the sand more than hard and fast walls. We actually have to declare and defend them. They don’t defend themselves.

We can find ourselves on the wrong side of our own lines sometimes. That’s what Vass is describing in this clip. It’s an incredible reminder of the importance of checking in with yourself and asking, not only “Am I wired for this” but “Is this working with me or against me?”

This pliability is as essential in trading and investing as it is to any domain of life where we have to put our energy. Being a good spouse, a decent parent, or even a colleague boils down to having some self-awareness of our lines in the sand and why the help us retain some shred of sanity and happiness.

Life question for you: What are you doing right now that's bringing out a version of yourself you don't actually want to be?

Key Concept: Most domains have built-in humility - you can't win the championship in your first year of coaching, or become a CEO before learning the business. But investing is uniquely dangerous because you can get lucky. You can make a massive return on your first trade without understanding what you did or why it worked. Chris recognized this trap early - he made 6X on NVIDIA without fully understanding what the company did. Rather than let beginner's luck convince him he was brilliant, he took half the profits off the table and committed to actually learning the rules. That's the legacy question: can you survive early success without letting it delude you?

Personal Archive Note-To-Self: There’s a gambling sentiment, that the worst thing that can happen to you the first time you gamble is you can win. It’s the idea that a little luck right out the gate can poison your brain with a false sense of confidence. This is a micro lesson that doesn’t just show up across life, but as Vass points out here, is insanely domain dependent.

Some field, like investing and gambling, can make you think you understand odds that aren’t there. Others, like pro sports, can distort how rarified the air you’re breathing around a singular opportunity that likely will not ever appear for you again no matter how good you are and no matter how hard you try.

We can obsess over gamifying and applying statistics to everything, but the reality is we’ll still never know. The default mode has to become humility. Self-awareness and a healthy does of humble can take us that much farther of a way. We don’t want to get too beat up when we lose, and we don’t want to get too high when we win.

And that all goes for lessons, too. The game of life isn’t won or lost, so much as it’s experienced. Enjoy the ride and try not to make irreparable choices. Help others to do the same. It’s that simple.

Legacy question for you: What have you gotten lucky with early, and are you building real expertise around it, or just riding the luck?

You have a Personal Network and a Personal Archive just waiting for you to build them up stronger. Look at your work, look at your life, and look at your legacy - and then, start small in each category. Today it's one person and one reflection. Tomorrow? Who knows what connections you'll create.

Don't forget to click reply/click here and tell me who you're adding to your network and why! Plus, if you already have your own Personal Archive too, let me know, I'm creating a database.

Want more? Find my Personal Archive on CultishCreative.com, watch me build a better Personal Network on the Cultish Creative YouTube channel, and listen to Just Press Record on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, and follow me on social media (LinkedIn and X) - now distributed by Epsilon Theory.

You can also check out my work as Managing Director at Sunpointe, as a host on top investment YouTube channel Excess Returns, and as Senior Editor at Perscient.

ps. AI helped me pull and organize quotes from the transcript, structure the three lessons, and sharpen the Key Concepts. If you're curious about how I use AI while keeping editorial control and my own voice intact, I wrote about my personal rules here: Did AI Do That: Personal Rules